


Out of Darkness, Light

by saberquill



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Carlos has a dark past, Cecil is Inhuman, Cults, Kidnapping, Love, M/M, Protective!Cecil, Relationship Discussions, Secrets, So does Cecil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-16
Updated: 2013-12-16
Packaged: 2018-01-04 20:07:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1085168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saberquill/pseuds/saberquill
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It starts, with Carlos, the way that most things for him start.</p><p>He is dreaming and cold.</p><p>His dreams are always cold."</p><p>Carlos has some dark secrets, Cecil has some too.  After Cecil rescues Carlos from yet another cult-kidnapping, they begin to discuss their pasts and their futures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Out of Darkness, Light

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the lovely Caducus for bata-ing this for me!

It starts, with Carlos, the way that most things for him start.

He is dreaming and cold.

His dreams are always cold. The waves, grey-green, are crashing beneath the black rock cliff where he stands, naked. The sea calls to him in a voice like all the thunder from the beginning of the world until its end. As always, he turns from the booming sea, at first slowly, then running very fast. Sweat pours down his face, his back, his legs. It runs into his eyes, turning the world into an ugly blur of dead colors. The wind blows, hard and angry, possessive, behind him. He is so very cold.

As always, the air he is gasping in burns him, sliding into his lungs like a dagger between his ribs. He takes it, the pain, and takes it. The pain is a part of him, he chants between the gasps, the pain will keep him safe. Still, he can’t run fast enough, and behind him he hears a buzz, a chittering, a cry of long-dead, ancient Things. Things which should not exist. The sound burns him worse then breathing. He cannot run fast enough.

He will fall, he knows. He will fall, and they will catch him. Not the chittering Things, but their servants, his masters. They will catch him, and finish what they came here for: they will cleave his flesh from his bones, and feed the Thing with his flesh and blood and dying fear. They will feed the Thing his soul. He will die and be unmade. But first, he will fall. He knows this, but he runs anyway, the air burning him, his eyes and ears and legs crying out against him, pleading with his frantic mind to just give up, give up, please give up and let it be over- but he will not. He will run until his bones fall to powdery dust. He will spend himself in the running so that, when they take him, he will leave nothing for the Thing to eat.

As always, his foot catches a rock. He falls, burning through space like a star.

And he knows what will happen, knows he will die-

But then, it changes. Something new happens, something not native to the dream’s thousand times re-told script. It is not the hard rock that rushes up to meet him, or the cold and hungry waves which, impatient to serve, will drag him to the Thing.

It is sand.

And suddenly the sounds- the roaring of the waves, the howling of the wind, the blood-chants, the hungry shrikes- they all fade away, like the static dropping away from a signal. He is alone in the desert. He looks up, shocked, and sees the stars.

They are completely unlike any stars he has seen before. And beneath them, by the sun-purpled horizon, is a town. And something in Carlos looks there and whispers-

Go.

And Carols drags himself to his feet and runs out, into the heat.

***  
The heat took him the longest to get used to, when he first came to Night Vale. He was sick for too many weeks, and even now, on particularly hot days, he will sometimes take out the ice bandana from his lab’s freezer and tie it around his head to keep himself working.

The heat also kept him up nights, but he didn't mind that so much.

Today, however, he had slept ,dreamt the same dream he always did and awoke in cold sweat, eyes wide and heart slamming against his chest, begging for freedom. He had stifled a groan and pulled himself out of bed as quietly as possible. He didn't want to wake Cecil.

In the bathroom, he had splashed his face with warm water, trying once again to wash the memory of cold from his bones.

He looked into the mirror with disgust.

His skin was clear, and burnished the color of warm sand. His lips were elegant and expressive. Hie eyes were almond shaped, framed with thick lashes, and such a deep and trusting brown that several of his co-workers over the years had nick-named him “Bambi.” He scowled. He loathed every feature in the mirror before him, but what he hated most of all was his hair.

It was perfect.

No matter what he did, it was perfect. He could neglect to wash it, go without combing it for days and, as he once had in a fit of desperation, he could spray it with hairspray and try backcombing, but it did no good. His hair fell in luscious waves, framing his face with a glow the color of ebony.

Carlos sighed, and began to get ready for work.

***

Later, Cecil’s radio broadcast soothed him as he entered data into a thin composition notebook bought on one of his infrequent day-trips to the city serval hours away. The first few times he’d tired to go, and found he couldn't, and Carlos had been worried. Now, he was careful to go on one long walk at sunset (but before dark, always before dark) two day before he left, and under his breath whisper to the town. He would tell it where he was going, and for how long, and why. Now, it knew he wouldn't leave it, Night Vale was much more accommodating.

Carlos had long ago stopped using his laptop.

We was entering the data in carefully, as he didn't want to mess it up and have to start over. It was impotent, but dull work. He relaxed into the sound of his lover’s voice. The sound and the heat and the cold beer he had sipped earlier all mixed together in him, and Carlos felt safe. Gradually, before he could realized it, Carlos fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

He woke up, several hours later, tired hand and foot and stuffed unceremoniously into what he could only assume was the trunk of a mid-sized car.

Through his gag, Carlos scowled.

***

What happened next was unpleasant. Carlos reflected later that he really shouldn't have let the new intern bring him his beer, or he should have at least noticed the taste of sleeping draught, but he had been preoccupied, and had made a mistake.

His captors took him, and began a series of ancient and eldritch rituals. Much to Carlos’ annoyance, they had done their research. He was bound in good quality rope and definitely felt a certain fuzziness that most occult drugs no longer gave him.

Whoever these people were, he reflected, they knew their security. Though Carlos looked and looked for an escape, they watched him carefully through the ritual bath, the chanting, and the evil speeches. Carlos was getting worried. Still, he would have to make a break for it at some point, and was about simply try the element of surprise and bolt and run-

When he heard a low rumbling and the wall caved in.

In through the dust and the rubble marched Cecile, and Carlos grinned. He knew the other man would find him, of course, he wasn't worried, not at all- but his relieved thoughts were suddenly overtaken by a frantic message, run in from the hindbrain.

Something was wrong about Cecil. He looked almost human, but his shape wasn't quite right: the eyes slid away from it, frantic to be anywhere else. Later, Carlos wouldn't remember clearly, but in that moment he thought he saw his lover grow strange, insectile wings. Cecil’s shadow seemed to loom huge and strange, like a hole in the fabric of the world.

The cultists scattered as Cecile let out a low growl, and hissed in a voice like an amorous void-

M I N E.

Then he scooped up Carlos and walked away, out into the desert and the cold night air.

***

Carlos knew he should be embarrassed. Here he was, tied up, naked, slightly drugged, and being carried by his reed-thin, and now fully human-looking boyfriend as if he had no weight. Still, he felt- well, good. Safe, even. Maybe, he reflected, the drugs had more effect then he thought.

The silence that descended was neither awkward, nor exactly comfortable. Neither was willing to speak first, But Carlos finally broke the silence.

“Look, Cecile thanks, but I did have that handled-”

“I know.”

“And you didn't-”

“I know.”

“And I wouldn't want you to be in any dang-”

“I know.”

“Cecil, I-” Carlos trailed off.

For a moment, both were silent.

“Damn it, Cecil. I got kidnapped by a cult. Aren’t you going to ask why?”

The other man looked startled.

“I’m not going- Carlos, I thought- what did you see back there?”

“Well, you. I mean you did knock down that wall, but fair's fair, I was the one who got abducted by sinister forces, and damn it, Cecil, I’m not going to spell this out for you-”

“Carlos, now is not the time. You are hurt and-”

“Not hurt. Barely buzzed, and I don’t even think I’ll have rope burn. I’ve seen people next to whom those guys are amateurs. Were amateurs. I doubt we’ll hear much from them anymore.” Carlos broke off in what, to his horror, he realized was a giggle.

“Carlos, I hardly think now is the time for jokes.” He sucked in a breath. “Carlos- I don’t want-”

“Then talk with me later. If you’re not worried, then I’ll be fine.” He yawned “Over breakfast. Ok?”

Cecile looked relieved.

“Ok.”

***

Later, after a long shower and little sleep, Carlos found himself sitting across from Cecile, wearing one of the other man’s sweater vests and a frayed pair of scrub pants. Cecile wore what he always did: kakis, sweater vest, and a collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up. It was always the same, no matter the weather, season, or ungodly level of heat. Carlos admired the other man’s fortitude.

Cecile had made coffee, pored his own with cream and Carlos’ black with two sugar lumps, just like Carlos liked it. He resisted the urge to grab the mug and drain it, but instead reached for Cecil’s hand.

Cecil took it and squeezed. Carlos took a breath.

“Look, Cecil- about last night. You remember, when you asked me that one time, about were I’m from?”

“Of course, you said you were from the coast. When I asked you what coast-”

“I wouldn't answer. Look, I know that it’s normal here, to have a dark past, or not have a past yet, but- there was something I didn't tell you. You remember how I flinched when you called me perfect to my face that first time?” He tumbled on before the other man could reply “Well, I know, and I’m perfect and I am because I was created to be.”

“Some of the children of my town are bred to be without any physical flaws or imperfections.” Carlos continued “We’re born beautiful, and as we grow older, we’re-” He took a breath “Altered- to be even more so. We’re called Children of the Sea.”

He let silence fall for a moment, plotting his next sentence very carefully.

“My parents- my home town, actually, have a- well, an unusual view of religion. There are Things that live in the deep, and though they don’t care for humanity, they’ll do business with a few of us. They like us- to eat. But they sleep and most don’t want to do anything so plebeian as hunting. So they make deals. Plenty of fishing, good winds, safe voyages, anything a village wants, as long as we keep them fed. As long as we- they give them tribute. But not just anyone. They say a sacrifice isn't a sacrifice if nothing of value is lost- so each year, when one the Children of the Sea turns fifteen, they are given to the Things in the sea. And all that perfection, and all that potential is lost forever, and the town is kept for another year.”

Carlos was watching the place mats intensely, no daring to raise his eyes up to meet the other man’s.

“I escaped. A few days before what was slated to be my final birthday, I bolted town. I ran, and I’ve never really slowed down. Any qualifications I could grab online and a lab coat and suddenly I’m a scientist.” He laughed sardonically. “I guess you could say I’ve never been published.”

Carlos shook his head “I don’t know what called me to Night Vale. I mean, you people have cults the way other places have neighborhood associations. But, I guess, I thought-” he paused, his eyes bright with unshed tears “look, were I come from, everything is water. Water and these flinty rock islands and jagged, tooth-like coasts. Here, it’s all sand. Orange and gold and the beautiful, purple twilight. I don’t know, I’ve come so far. I guess you could say I though, here, I could stop running.”

Carlos was crying now, and shaking. “If you want to leave, I understand. I’m trouble. I attract, well, I attract pretty much every eldritch Thing within a hundred miles. I have a bad habit of getting kidnapped, and a worse one of getting my friends and loved ones killed. You can leave. You should leave. But, if I could- well, I love you. But I would rather you stay alive, and that’s all there is too it.”

There was a moment, and it felt like falling.

Then Cecil spoke.

“Oh, Carlos, my dear, sweet, wonderful Carlos. I’m so sorry.”

Carlos looked up. Cecile wasn't just crying, he was weeping. His tears ran and ran down is face, and his eyes- he looked like someone had given him his heart’s desire- and just as quickly had snatched it away.

“Carlos,” Cecil continued “I’m so sorry for what those people tried to do to you, and all those horrible people since- Oh, Carlos. If I’d had known- I’m so sorry.” He said it, not sympathetically, but like someone with something to repent.

“Cecil?” Carlos said, his despair melting into confusion.

“Carols,” Cecil said. “You’re not the only one here whose been keeping secrets.”

He took a breath. “I’m not human.”

“I don’t know what you saw yesterday, when I came to take you back from those awful people, but I lost control- just a little, and you might have seen- Carlos, I’m an Other- like those Things from the sea.”

Carlos pulled his hand away, as if he had been burned. Cecil continued, and his voice did not break. “I’ve known all my life. I am an incarnation of the Heart of Night Vale.”

“When I was born,” Cecil said. “the City Council knew right away. The whole city, in fact seemed to be blooming, as it always does when the Heart returns. The old host had died two years before, and they were beginning to fear that the town would die- as it would, if the Heart did not pick an avatar in which to be born into the world. Drastic measures were needed, and my human parents took them. My father sacrificed his life, and my mother lost most of her mind to save Night Vale- to birth the Heart is incredibly dangerous. I grew up thinking that, what ever else I did, I would always bear the guilt of what had happened.”

“But, gradually,” Cecil continued “I realized- what they gave, they gave willingly. Cecil, the human I am now, was born in love, not in despair.” The radio announcer sighed “I can remember everything, Carlos, human and not. But of the eons and eons, I think that this life might be my favorite yet. I was born loved, and most miraculously of all, I grew up loving. That was something I’d never done before. Imagine Carlos, in all that time, I’d never loved.”

Cecil smiled, a little sadly “But with love, this new alien experience, came another emotion. It took me a long time, by human reckoning, to know what it was. I was lonely. All those millions of years of being alone, and it took being human to be lonely. Imagine. But, Carlos, when you came into town, I saw you, and I knew- here was someone like me. Someone lonely, someone who had been different. Someone who fit- with me. When I called you perfect, Carlos, I meant it.” The scientist tensed, not truly scared, but still ready to run. “Not that way!” Cecil looked upset “I mean- I mean I love you. All of you- your eyes, your smile, your story. Carlos, you have no idea how beautiful you are. I would show you, if you let me.”

“H-How?” Carlos, stammered, at a loss for words.

“You’d have to let me into your mind,” Carlos drew back, “but that, of course, it entirely out of the question. I only want you to know that I know- I’ve seen your beauty, and I’ve seen the price you had to pay for it.” Cecil smiled, a little sadly. “But I’ve also seen the other kind of beauty you have, too. The kind you think no one knows. The kind you get from being lonely and from being brave. Carlos, I love you. I love you like a human loves another human and and like immortal loves something bright and brief. I love you because Cecil will die eventually, but the Heart has been forever changed by his life.”

“Carlos, I love this world. I love being Cecil, and I love being something more. I love having dreams of flight in the depth of space. I love being the Heart of Night Vale and I love being its voice. But, sometimes, I wish I could forget every non human thought I’ve every had, and just be simple and ordinary for a moment, for you. But Carlos, I can’t be all one thing when I am so very, very complicated.”

“But do not think, even for a second,” Cecil continued “that just because I am Eldritch, that I will ever stop being here for you. Whether you can love me, complexities and all, or not, you will always have me as an ally. Carlos, I am completely on your side, and I will be, until the death of time and the end of death.”

The scientist slid his hand back across the table, until his finger touched Cecil’s.  
“Show me.” Carols said, as he squeezed Cecil’s hand. “Show me what you see.”

And, silently, Cecil slid his mind out so that he fully felt the self that the physical plane could not fully encompass. He felt and saw things he knew the tiny figure seated across from him could never even begin to comprehend. But, still, throughout all these millennia, across every life, the desire to Know More flowed through him. In the end, he thought, perhaps is was little wonder that a scientist would be his match. So thinking, he spooled out a single filament of thought and touched Carlos’ mind.

Carols was shocked. He felt like a man who had spent his whole life in a pressure suit experiencing skin-to-skin touch for the first time. The contact felt as alien as flying, and as familiar as a heartbeat. And suddenly, he saw.

He saw Cecil, or rather, the Heart of Night Vale, as a huge, unknowable shape, with wings as bright as midnight and as dark as dawn. He saw the infinities unwinding themselves around the heights and depths of him. He felt terror and awe and love. Deep, pure love, for something, someone, he knew he could never understand.

And then, he saw himself, and he knew that he was seeing as the Heart saw. For here he was, with the old physical features with which he had been always been judged, and in the Heart’s eyes they mattered as little as a single fleck on a single feather of a sparrow flying past the sun. What mattered, truly, was the life that the Heart saw, the brief, beautiful time of Carlos, flowing through and past his mortal from. The Heart saw determination and courage and strength Carlos had not realized he had. The deep potential. The love. It was not his flesh, but his soul that Carlos’ lover adored. Which, Carlos realized, was, in it’s own way, as eternal and awesome as the form beside him.

Y o u s e e. Said the Heart inside his mind. T h e y c o u l d n e v e r o w n w h a t m a d e y o u p e r f a c t. I t w a s t h e r e a l l t h e t i m e: I t w a s y o u.

And the depth of it, the weight of that voice, rumbled through his being like a summer breeze through the leaves of a tree. He was dancing with it.

Then, just as suddenly as it had began, the connection broke. All that was left was Cecil, silly, wonderful Cecil, and two cups of stone-cold coffee. Carlos laughed.

“Cecil- I-”

“I understand,” said the announcer, sadly. “I’ve given you a lot to think about. Think it over, I can go stay with friends for a few days-” but before Cecil could finish the sentence Carlos pulled him over into a kiss.

They broke, much later, and only then for air. Carlos smiled. “Cecil.” He said “I love you. All of you, the simple and the complicated.” Cecil looked bowled over.

“Ah. Good. I- love you too, Carlos. Very much. I love you very much.”

They kissed again.

***

Things went on in much the same fashion they always did in Night Vail. Still, citizens marked that the desert flowers seemed to be blooming awfully late this year, and they smiled. Life is always better in Night Vale when the Heart is happy.

And the next time some luckless cultists tried kidnapping Carlos, they found them selves stuck between a force far greater then any they knew and his lover, who could put up quite a fight as well.

“Really,” Cecil remarked, months later, as they wandered home from another incident “these idiots hadn't even found a proper dark god. Kids these days know nothing about proper cult activity.” Carlos looked amused “Well, they’d have to be new. I doubt their are many older ones who’d cross you. Still, at least this cult had the grace to be better cooks then most. If I have to eat one more ceremonial meal that was clearly catered by Arby’s, I’m going to have to start my own.”

“I doubt you’d last very long. Night Vale residents are known to be very unwelcoming of outside cults, and you haven’t been here long enough to even request the paperwork necessary to start a religion.”

“True enough.” Carlos said, grinning “I suppose I’ll have to keep it small. One member, one god. Now how about you and I go whip up a ritual late-night snack and then we try something dark and arcane upstairs-” and he yelped as Cecil playfully nibbled his ear. “I accept.” he whispered in a low voice. Carols shivered, but with anticipation rather then fear.

The night breeze was warm with the promise of spring to come, and night was drawing in, but the two men were close to their apartment, and Carlos would come to no harm, walking as he was with the Heart with the city.

Little by little, the stars came out

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> This fic has been on the back burner since summer, and it's nice to finally get it posted. Due to recent developments in WTNV, my head cannon has become that Cecil's new willingness to embrace Carlos's imperfections on air is at least somewhat based on their conversations here.
> 
> EDIT: 1/8/2014 Due to what's happening in the fandom, I though I'd clarify- Carlos is still totally POC here, despite the Lovecraft-country childhood (I will address this in a later fic). Cecil is deliberately not described, but I support all headcannons of him, especially ones that vie away from the traditionally accepted images. :)


End file.
